Would You Let This Robot Stab You In The Arm?

It’s called Veebot, and it would stab you to draw blood, of course. And no, it wouldn’t be a fun or horror driven blood drawing, but more of a medical thing, where the liquid ends up being used either in blood banks or tested for whatever disease you managed to infect yourself with. Designed by one Richard Harris, a Princeton alumni, the Veebot currently has about the same accuracy as a human, or about 83%, meaning it misses the vein 17% of the time. So what’s the point, you say? Well, for one, the robot is still being worked on and accuracy is expected to improve over time. Secondly, unlike humans, robots don’t get tired, so you could conceivably increase the efficiency of a blood drawing operation by having a fleet of bots working round the clock. Harris expects to increase accuracy to 90% within the next few months, and will start looking for funding to commercialize the project at that point. It’s a $9 billion market (yes… in the States at least, drawing blood is a ‘market’), so he may be on to something.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.